As such, I believe there are 3 behaviors that are preventing our organization and the various teams from reaching the “High Performance Team” level (The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization). My attempt to increase the teams’ (and the entire organization) performance level is by focusing on the following 3 behaviours:

Setting clear agreements

Eliminating gossips

Operating with integrity

Why focus on these 3 behaviors?

Let me start with a simple example to highlight what typically happens in many (including ours) organizations. You will certainly quickly understand why this is dysfunctional and can easily lead to sub-optimal performance. I invite you to follow a typical conversation…

Sarah: “Mi Mark, I’ve been having issues with payments from a customer. Can you help me?”

Mark, in the middle of typing an email: ” Sorry, I wasn’t listening. You need help with something Sarah?”

Sarah: “Yes Mark, we have sent reminders to your customer but still haven’t received any payment. Since you are the account manager for this customer, I was wondering if you can help me?”

Mark: “Yeah. Well, of course. What do you need me to do?”

Sarah: “I don’t know. Maybe you can give them a call to see why they aren’t paying their latest invoice.”

Mark: “OK. I have a few things to take care of today. I should be able to help you”.

Sarah, walking away: “Alright. Thanks.”

[3 days later]

Sarah, talking to herself: “I can’t believe it. I asked Mark to help me with something important and he still didn’t get back to me. Doesn’t he understand that receiving payments is important for our company. It’s always like this with him, he says “yes” but never does anything.”

[Sarah enters the coffee room]

Mary, smiling: “Hi Sarah. How are you today?”

Sarah, clearly upset: “Not good. Mark is so unreliable. I asked him to help me contact a customer and he still hasn’t done anything. It’s been 3 days already.”

Mary, nodding: “I understand what you are saying. I’ve asked him to contact a customer to invite them to an upcoming conference and he still hasn’t done anything. It’s over 2 weeks already.”

Sarah, pouring milk in her coffee: “Why is it that we have to do everything around here?”

Mary, approving: “You know, Mark is not the only one. Do you know that I’m waiting for Don to submit new content for the web site? It’s been 10 days already and Don hasn’t done anything. I don’t know what to do!”

Don, entering the room to get a coffee: “Good morning ladies!”

Sarah, walking away with a cup of warm coffee: “Good morning Don. Have a good day!”

Mary, smiling to Don: “Hi Don, how was the hockey game last night?”

[For 15 minutes, Don and Mary continue their conversation about the hockey game]

Mary, walking away with a donut and a coffee: “Nice talking to you Don. Have a good day!”

I doubt that these conversations only take place within our organization but what I’ve noticed is that they are detrimental to high performance. Here’s what’s wrong with this story:

Lack of clearly defined agreements – who does what? by when?;

Absence of difficult conversations – when commitments are broken, people don’t have open discussions around the situation at hand;

Talking to others about someone else’s issues – people resort to involving third parties in a situation that would better be resolved between those who had an agreement;

Not living up to the promise – commitments are taken lightly and there are no consequences for not delivering on them.

So here’s what I’m proposing to the teams in an attempt to take the organization to the next level.

Setting clear agreements

It is critical to establish clear agreements in order to avoid disappointment and mis-trust. To obtain a commitment and make sure that people have a true agreement, it is critical to make a clear proposal that can:

Be accepted in full;

Be rejected completely;

Be renegotiated.

Once the agreement has taken place, each party must then honor its commitments.

Eliminating gossips

Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others. It forms one of the oldest and most common means of sharing (unproven) facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and other variations into the information transmitted. The term also carries implications that the news so transmitted (usually) has a personal or trivial nature, as opposed to normal conversation […] The term is sometimes used to specifically refer to the spreading of dirt and misinformation – Wikipedia.

Instead of pretending to address a situation by involving a third party, eliminate gossip and go directly to the person with whom there is an issue and work at resolving it with them.

Operating with integrity

integrity is the inner sense of “wholeness” deriving from qualities such as honesty and consistency of character. As such, one may judge that others “have integrity” to the extent that one judges whether they behave according to the values, beliefs and principles they claim to hold – Wikipedia.

For me, integrity is very simple as it means to “Do what I say and say what I do”.

Finally, in the possible event that someone can no longer deliver on their commitment, they must inform the other party as soon as they realize they won’t meet their commitment and re-open the agreement.

This may seem trivial and very simple to implement but I doubt any organization has actually been able to implement these behaviors on a large scale. I trust that we will become a highly performing organization once we are successful at doing this.

Martin..
This is an EXCELLENT post.
Setting 3 areas of focus deliver great results.
The story you share of people finding a comfort in discussions, without involving the person is very relateable.

This is an area that I often wonder about, when people are working on a project as in the example you listed, and they are all equal on the hierarchy what is the accoutability?

for example can Sarah hold mark accountable for not following through on her need, can Mark clearly refuse her request, and that is acceptable in his responsibilities.
Taking some time within the team to explain and clear these project accoutabilities will move the team.